With Mass Effect 3 dropping next week, this week’s Pulse also shows off the unique in-game Argus rifle and exclusive PS3 theme available for those who pre-order from PlayStation Store. Other “Only on PlayStation” content shown in this episode include a look at SSX’s Mt Fuji mountain and Street Fighter X Tekken’s exclusive character Cole MacGrath.

Last week’s Twisted Metal inspired episode of The Tester 3 really pushed our gamers as the two teams scrambled to build a replica of Sweet Tooth’s ice cream truck under the intense scrutiny of David Jaffe. If you missed it, catch the full episode right here!

Week 3 tests their ability to overcome obstacles and stay focused in a challenge inspired by UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss for PS Vita. Golden Abyss’ creative director John Garvin visits from Sony Bend Studio to evaluate each team’s performance in the most demanding challenge of the season thus far. And this week, the winning team gets to spend some quality time with Nathan Drake himself, Nolan North. But the fun and games abruptly end during this week’s intense elimination.

On last week’s premiere episode of The Tester 3, we put our gamers through an intense challenge involving a mock job interview and hissing cockroaches. We literally got to witness how each cast member dealt with bugs. For episode 2, things gets really twisted, as David Jaffe, Twisted Metal’s co-director, is this week’s guest panelist on hand to evaluate teamwork in a Sweet Tooth-inspired competition. You also don’t want to miss the gamers taking on the first boss battle in the new Twisted Metal as part of this week’s challenge. Mr. Jaffe appeared in an earlier video here on the PlayStation.Blog, and discussed the great opportunity this season’s winner will have working as a Production Associate at Santa Monica Studio. Check out the below video to get a taste of today’s episode, which you can watch right here and download from the PlayStation Store later today.

Pulse celebrates Valentine’s Day alongside Sweet Tooth and the release of Twisted Metal. In our new episode, get a taste of this wicked vehicle shooter from David Jaffe and the crew at Eat Sleep Play. Remember: new copies of the game give you access to Twisted Metal Black via PSN.

To celebrate the start of season 3, we’ve brought our past two winners of The Tester here to the PlayStation.Blog to talk about their experiences. Both season 1 winner Will Powers (Cyrus) and season 2 winner Matthew Brown (Gaymer) have gone on from their experience on The Tester to full-time careers at Sony. We spoke to both of them recently, and below, they’ve given us their thoughts on being a part of the show, and where it has taken them.

February’s Qore crosses over, jumps into the future, and flies into the past.

Jesse Blaze Snider starts off with this month’s lead feature by tagging into Street Fighter X Tekken. Capcom’s Seth Killian sits down with Jesse to discover how this wild mashup was first conceived, how the tag team gameplay works, and what’s going on with those “gems.” He also follows Birds of Steel, a game that rolls back the clock to World War II-era dogfighting.

Then, Tiffany Smith jumps into a future-day Tokyo populated by sophisticated robots that have pretty much tossed out Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics in Binary Domain. While the premise might not be that original, the new ‘consequence system’ that judges your command of NPC’s is interesting, as Tiffany discovered with Director Toshihiro Nagoshi. And don’t miss Toshihiro’s pick for his favorite weapon in the game! Tiffany also checks out Warp to preview the plethora of puzzles and crazy teleportation techniques of a cute alien bent on busting out.

The third season of The Tester, PlayStation Network’s exclusive reality series, launches tomorrow, February 7th! We’ve introduced the cast, panelists, and special guests you’ll see in season 3, and most importantly, the grand prize these lucky gamers will be competing to win: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work as a Production Associate at one of Sony’s most well-respected game development facilities: Santa Monica Studio. To sweeten the deal, we’re also giving the winner a $5,000 signing bonus, 55” Sony Bravia 3D TV, PS3 system, and a 2012 Ford Focus Titanium.

While the past two seasons of The Tester have offered the winners a chance to work as a game tester at Sony Computer Entertainment America, this season’s grand prize is an even more amazing opportunity than before — the battle to seize it will be fierce. This season’s winner will earn the chance to contribute on the studio’s next game and collaborate with some of most imaginative people working in the interactive medium.

With only one week until the season 3 premiere of The Tester on February 7, it’s time to give you a sneak peek at what you’ll be seeing in the first episode of the season, and a taste of what’s to come in future episodes. We have a lot in store this season, and we don’t want to ruin any surprises, but today’s preview should give you a good idea of what challenges this season’s group of contestants will be tackling as they vie for a chance to work as a Production Associate at Santa Monica Studio.

With hissing cockroaches, brutal obstacle courses, and much more standing in their way of the grand prize, our contestants this season will have their work cut out for them.